GPOD on the Road: Vancouver Garden Tour

07.03.2024 - 09:45 / finegardening.com / GPOD Contributor

We’re tagging along with Cherry Ong today, enjoying pictures from a series of garden tours she went on last June, organized by the Vancouver Hardy Plant Society.

These photos are from the garden of Pam Frost – aka, “The Doyenne of Perennials!”

Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa, Zone 5 – 9) are always beautiful, but get absolutely show-stopping once they’re fully mature. This specimen is gorgeous, with pink flowers, and looks to be the variety ‘Satomi’, named for the granddaughter of famed Japanese nurseryman Akira Shibamichi.

A stunning huge schefflera (I think Schefflera taiwanianum, Zone 8 – 10) with gorgeous foliage.

I love this little greenhouse! What a charming and useful addition to the garden.

Arisaema consanguineum (Zone 5 – 8) has beautiful and unusual flowers in early summer, and the bold, tropical foliage looks great the whole growing season.

Beautiful combination of green ferns and a perfect bird bath to set them off. I think the fern in the front is a variety of Asplenium, but I’m not sure. Whatever it is, the color and texture is incredible.

Looking up at the trees, with a golden-leaved black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’, Zone 3 – 8) taking center stage with leaves that just glow.

We usually think of rhododendrons as being grown for their flowers… but who needs flowers when the foliage looks like this? Beautiful contrast between the old growth and the new. The Pacific Northwest is an ideal climate for countless rhododendron species and hybrids, including many with gorgeous foliage like this.

Masterwort (Astrantia major, Zone 4 – 7) grows in part shade and produces these unusual clusters of flowers backed by a ring of showy bracts. As you can see, the flowers attract lots of insect visitors looking for